Fryers for the deep drying of food articles such as potatoe chips and the like customarily develop a substantial quantity of fumes from the heated fat, and are usually provided with some form of permanent air ducting and an exhaust fan whereby the fumes are ducted away from the cooking area. However, in many commercial locations it is impractical to provide permanent air duct work. For example, in supermarkets or large chain stores, fast food counters are installed in a variety of locations such that it is not always convenient to provide air duct work. Generally speaking, the absence of such air duct work would render it undesirable to install a deep fat fryer due to the release of unwholesome odours from the heated fat. However, modern eating habits demand to an increasing extent the availability of cooked food snacks at a variety of locations, and accordingly, various attempts have been made in the past to provide free standing fryers which incorporated a deep fat fryer and some form of air exhaust system incorporating a filter to remove such odours. However, such systems as have been available in the past have been relatively inefficient and either the filter has broken down after a very short space of time or it was altogether ineffective, or the servicing of the filters was time consuming and troublesome such that the unit would have to be shut off for substantial lengths of time.
In addition, such free standing fryer units as were available in the past created something of a fire hazard since they did not generally speaking incorporate any automatic fire extinguishing apparatus, such as is customary on permanent commercial cooking installations.
In addition, the design and appearance of such free standing fryers as were previously available was somewhat cumbersome and unattractive and did not create favourable customer reaction in all cases.